As modeling and simulation (M&S) becomes increasingly important, there is a significant and growing need to educate, train, and certify M&S practitioners, researchers, and faculty. Efforts to meet that need have taken a number of forms: academic degree programs, non-degree professional education, and professional certifications.

In an academic degree program that was initiated in the summer of 2010, UAH offers M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in M&S. The program has a conventional academic structure in terms of course requirements, thesis and dissertation requirements, and examinations. The curriculum of the UAH program was consciously based on the successful M&S degree programs at Old Dominion University (Norfolk VA) and the University of Central Florida (Orlando FL), but has been customized to meet the needs of the Huntsville technical community, which is predominately oriented towards engineering, defense, and aerospace applications of M&S. Students completing degrees in the program will been educated in multiple areas of modeling and simulation, including fundamental concepts, modeling paradigms and methods, verification and validation methods, mathematics and statistics, visualization and graphics, simulation system architectures and implementation, and application-specific modeling and simulation practices.